EDWARDSVILLE - It has been circulating for quite some time that Amazon was bringing offices to Edwardsville, but today it is official: the company will bring 1,000 full-time jobs with benefits.
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Edwardsville Mayor Hal Patton said Amazon locating in Edwardsville is not only good for his city, but great for the Metro East Illinois and entire St. Louis area.
“There will be permanent jobs with great wages and wonderful benefits,” he said. “It is an important time to get this kind of news with the temporary closing of the [Granite City] mill. The jobs average $35,000 a year with benefits. The average job and other higher paying jobs are also available. There will be everything from mechanical workers to carpentry work with a lot of renovating. We speculate the permit values at $4 to $5 million in interior work and the estimated value of these 750,000-square-foot plus warehouses to be $30 to $40 million.”
Patton said there will be a lot of trades busy there with electrical and plumbing work coming.
Madison County Chairman Alan Dunstan said with Amazon’s addition and others likely to come, he speculates the commerce center area will double with jobs in the next five years.
“I have to give credit working with Edwardsville Mayor Hal Patton, without the Enterprise Zone, it wouldn’t have happened. The state and Gov. Rauner have also been good to work with. It has been a bi-partisan effort to bring Amazon to our location. It fits into our whole idea of logistics with Hershey’s, Proctor and Gamble and Unilever. When these companies come, others like them will come.”
Akash Chauhan, Amazon’s vice president of North American operations, said, “The elected officials throughout the city and state have been very supportive of Amazon and we thank them for helping make this possible. We’re excited to soon call Edwardsville home and become an active member of this vibrant community.”
“Amazon’s newest investment in Illinois is a commitment to the future of our state,” Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner said. “Amazon brings more than a thousand great paying jobs to Madison County and strengthens Illinois’ position as a national hub for distribution and logistics. We are excited Amazon has again chosen our state and continues to be a growing partner in economic development in the Land of Lincoln. This growth represents the type of results possible when state economic development is focused on a long-term strategy."
Full-time employees at Amazon receive competitive hourly wages and a comprehensive benefits package, including healthcare, 401(k) and company stock awards starting on day one, as well as generous maternity and parental leave benefits.
Amazon also offers employees innovative programs like Career Choice, where it will pre-pay tuition for courses related to in-demand fields, regardless of whether the skills are relevant to a career at Amazon. Since the program’s launch, employees are pursuing degrees in game design and visual communications, nursing, IT programming and radiology, to name a few.
Amazon is now hiring for management positions at the Edwardsville fulfillment centers. To learn more about working at an Amazon fulfillment center, visit www.workatamazonfulfillment.com.
This is not the first time that Amazon has made its way into the state of Illinois. The company has an existing fulfillment center in Joliet that employs 1,500 full-time employees with exceptional benefits.
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